Revolving flat card



o ct. ze, 1937. J. 5.610 2,097,046

REVOLVING FLAT CARD Filed oct. 25, 1955 2 sheets-sheet 1 INVENTOR ATTO R N EY J. s. Slo 2,097,046

REVOLVI NG FLAT CARD Oct. 26, 1937.

Filed Oct. 25, 1 955 2 Sheets-Shree*- 2 INVENTOR .Insole/maia ATTORN EYS Patented Oct. 26, 1937 UNITED STATES PATENT GFFICE.`

REVOLVING FLAT CARD Jos Serra Sio, Barcelona, Spain Application October 25, 1935, Serial N0. 46,668

1 Claim.

Y This invention relates to a carding machine of a type generally known as a revolving flat card for cleaning and carding cotton and forming it into a sliver preparatory to spinning. 5 Hitherto revolving fiat cards comprise a lickerin, 9" in diameter, a cylinder Whose diameter is about 50 inches with a co-operating set of revolving flats usually consisting of 106 to 110 fiats and a doffer 27Vin diameter which Ycollects 10 the cotton fleece and delivers it to a pair of compressing rollers which forms it into a sliver.

It is Well known that a well carded cotton isthe fundamental base for good spinning, that is, the fundamental operation of a card consists in cleaning the fibres of all motes and impurities, paralleling the fibres in order to facilitate the Work of the subsequent operations.

It is also an essential basic point of these machines to obtain the maximum production gg without losing any of the qualities of carding or parallelization of the fibres.

The function or work of the iiats in carding machines is to remove the neps, motes, impurities and short bres that have been left in the cotton 2;. from the picking operation and to parallelize or comb the fibres. The parallelization or combing of the bres is the most important function performed by the flats. Further the carding action or parallelizing of the fibres is most eiiicient at To or near the point where the fibres are first subjected to the action of the fiats due to the clean condition of the ats at this point. Consequently the ats which soon become charged with neps, short fibres and motes perform little or no useful :2.3 work after about one-third of their travel around the cylinder.

Therefore, due to the fact that on the revolving fiat cards as described above, the number of flats in contact with the cylinder is of about 42 iiats, the practical results are that only onethird of those, or about 14 flats, do the practical Work, because when the ats have moved through approximately one-third of their travel over the cylinder they are entirely loaded with short fibres 45 and impurities, and during the rest of the time they areV incontact with the cylinder they do no practical work, but on the contrary, they are injurious to the work due to the fact that a part of the impurities and shortlibres that are D0 on them fall back over the cylinder. The iiats should be perfectly clean to perform emcient and perfect work so that the fibres of cotton will receive a maximum carding or combing and cleaning.

55 In order to avoid these and similar inconveniences, where fine quality of Work -is essential, two carding processes have been resorted to, or what is called double carded, which consist of passing the cotton first through a carding machine, then winding about 100 of the `slivers. 5 from the firstV card into the form of a lap and then passing the lap again through a second carding machine. This method is known as double carding. Another method is to take the slivers from the carding machine and form a 10 number of the slivers into a narrow lap and pass these laps through a combing machine.

The object of the present invention is to produce a sliver on a single carding machine which Vis of finer quality and has certain definite ,ad-f

vantages over the slivers heretofore produced by the double carding method.

, According to my present invention the film of cotton as it passes through the carding machine is gradually stretched out and made thinner and 20' finer so that when the film of cotton is delivered to the doffer, compressing rolls and sliver-forming mechanism the parallelization of the individual fibres is practically complete and a finer sliver is produced. VA sliver produced in accord-Y ance with my invention is of such fine quality and so completely free ofimpurities and short fibres that it is wholly unnecessary to subject it to another carding operation. Furthermore the stretching out of the film during the carding operation produces a stronger, cleaner and finer yarn.

In the drawings:

Fig. 1 is a side elevation of a carding machine constructed in accordance with my invention; and

Fig. 2 is a diagrammatic view of the carding cylinders and flats and the transfer roll located between the two carding cylinders.

Referring to the parts by reference characters, l designates the licker-in roll which may be of the usual construction. The licker-in preferably is about 9" in diameter and receives the cotton lap in the usualmanner and after removing the heaviest impurities delivers a film of cotton to the rst carding cylinder 2 which is approximately 27 in diameter. This cylinder is provided with theusual card clothing and the cotton from the licker-in is distributed in a iilm over the surface of the cylinder. The cylinder 2 is driven by belt 3 in a clock-wise direction as indicated by the arrow in Fig. 2. Above this cylinder is arranged an endless belt of flats 4 which contains fiats of which approximately l1 are always in Contact withthe cylinder, the said cats being 55 driven in the direction of the rotation of the cylinder 2 by means of suitable belt connections to the first cylinder. These flats act on the cotton bres in the usual manner and the card clothing of the iiats is cleaned by a comb and rotary cleaners driven in any suitable manner. The surface speed of the first cylinder 2 is greater than the surface speed of the licker-in roll with the result that the cotton fibres taken up by the cylinder from a certain given area of the lickerin roll is spread out over a greater surface on the cylinder, thereby thinning out the cotton film as it is delivered to the first cylinder.

In the machine frame is mounted a second carding cylinder 5. This cylinder is mounted on an axis parallel with the axis of the first cylinder and preferably is of the same diameter as the first cylinder. The second cylinder 5 is out of contact with the first cylinder and between the two cylinders above the axes thereof, there is arranged a transfer roll 6. This transfer roll is of the same construction and size as the licker-in roll, except that the card clothing on the same is of a much finer number than the one on the licker-in, and is arranged so that its teeth cooperate with the card clothing on the first cylinder to strip the cotton film therefrom and carry it over and deliver it to the carding clothing on the second cylinder. This transfer roll is driven from the second cylinder by means of belt 'l and its direction of rotation is clock-wise, corresponding to the direction of rotation of the cylinder I so that the cotton is picked up by the transfer roll and carried up over the roll and then down to the card clothing of the second cylinder. The action of the transfer roll in picking up the cotton film from the card clothing of cylinder 2 results in an efficient cleaning operation at this point. It also has the effect of straightening out and paralleling the fibres.

Above the second cylinder is arranged an endless belt of fiats 8 which are driven from the second cylinder in the direction of rotation of said second cylinder. The second cylinder is driven by belt 9 from the first cylinder and said second cylinder also rotates clock-wise as indicated by the arrow in Fig. 2. The belt 8 contains 55 flats .and 17 of them are always in contact with the cylinder. The second cylinder is provided with card clothing having finer teeth than the card clothing of the first cylinder 2. The flats co-operating with the second cylinder are also provided with card clothing having teeth finer than the teeth of the card clothing of the first cylinder and corresponding in proportion of iineness with the card clothing of the second cylinder.

The transfer roll is driven at a higher surface speed than the first cylinder with the result that the cotton film on the first cylinder is stretched out or made thinner on the transfer roll. The second cylinder is driven at a surface speed greater than the surface speed of the transfer roll with the result that the cottonfilrn delivered to the second cylinder by the transfer roll is again stretched out and made thinner. This progressive stretching out and thinning down of the cotton film and the operation of the fine card clothing on the second cylinder and on the second set of flats results in the production of a fine cotton film on the second cylinder in which the cotton bres have been stretched out into complete or substantially complete parallelization. When the cotton passes from the transfer roll to the second cylinder No. 5, a second carding process takes place as previously described, with respect to the.

action of the transfer roll in picking up the cotton film from the first cylinder, due to the fact that the lineal speed of the second cylinder is superior to that of the transfer roll.

It is a great advantage to drive the transfer roll in the same direction as the two carding cylinders. Said transfer roll due to the difference of time of speed takes the cotton lm from the first carding cylinder and carries it up and over to the second cylinder so that there can be no loss of fiber. The fiber film is supported by the transfer roll during the period of transfer so that the fiber can not drop as it would by gravity from the transfer roll during the period of carryover.

The doifer l0 may be of any suitable construction and may be driven in any suitable manner and the sliver-forming means and compressing rolls may be of any desired construction.

The card clothing is so arranged on the cylinders 2 and 5 and on the transfer roll 6 that the points of the teeth extend in the same direction and at substantially the same angle. This results in a cleaning and parallelizing action at points of transfer between the first cylinder and the transfer roll and between the transfer roll and the second cylinder.

In the operation of a machine constructed in accordance with this invention, the cotton of the lap passes through the licker-in and is delivered to the first cylinder which together with its cooperating set of iiats carries out the rst operation of carding and cleaning the fibres. After this first operation the cotton film is taken from the first cylinder by the transfer roll and because of its higher surface speed the film is stretched out or thinned by said roll and then delivered to the second carding cylinder. The second carding cylinder, by reason of its higher surface speed takes the cotton film from the transfer roll and again stretches it out and thins it down. This stretched out or thinned cotton film is subjected to a second carding process by the action of the finer card clothing on the second cylinder and on the second set of flats. This method of carding cotton results in a superior or finer quality of sliver due to the efficient cleaning of the fibre, the straightening of them and their complete parallelization and uniformity of size of fibre which produces a more uniform in diameter, cleaner and stronger yarn.

A machine constructed in accordance with this invention constitutes a two-stage carding mechanism. The carding mechanism of the first stage receives the cotton film from the licker-in and subjects it to the first carding operation. A transfer means is interposed between the carding mechanism of the rst stage and the carding mechanism of the second stage. The transfer mechanism stretches out or thins down the film of cotton as it is taken up by it from the first stage carding mechanism. The second stage carding mechanism picks up the cotton film from the transfer mechanism and in so doing again stretches it out and thins it down.

This application is a continuation in part of my application, Serial No. 688,485, filed September 7, 1933. p What I claim is:

A revolving flat carding machine for carding cotton, comprising a licker-in, a first-stage carding cylinder to receive the cotton from the lickerin, a first set of revolving fiats arranged above the rst cylinder and cooperating with an upper portion thereof, means for driving the said firststage cylinder in a direction to carry the cotton from the licker-in up to the Cooperating set of flats, a second-stage carding cylinder arranged close to the rst cylinder but free of Contact therewith, a second set of revolving flats arranged above the second cylinder and cooperating With an upper portion thereof, a toothed transfer roll arranged between the said two cylinders and of less diameter than said cylinders, and mounted to rotate on an axis parallel with the cylinder axes and above the centers of said cylinders and between the delivery end of the first set of ats and the receiving end of the second Set of flats said roll cooperating with the said cylinders to remove the cotton from the rst cylinder after it has passed the first set of ats and carry it up over the transfer roll and deliver said cotton to the second cylinder at a point adjacent the receiving end of the second set of flats, said second cylinder and its cooper-` ating set of revolving ilats having a ner grade of card clothing than said rst cylinder and its cooperating flats, means for driving the said transfer roll in the same direction as the rst cylinder and at a greater surface speed to stretchY out the film of cotton, means for driving the second cylinder in the same direction as the rst cylinder and at a greater surface speed than said transfer roll to again stretch out the film of cotton and carry the cotton from the transfer roll up over the second-stage cylinder to the receiving end of the second set of flats, and a doffer for stripping the cotton iilm from the said second-stage carding cylinder after said cotton has passed the second set of ats.

JOSE SERRA SIO. 

